Kiosks Driving Expansion at Hertz

Editor

When Hertz reported a narrower-than-expected first quarter loss May 2, its CEO Mark Frissora made sure to single out the company’s 122 video kiosks for allowing the car rental company to take advantage of higher demand among business travelers in the U.S. The kiosks, which customers can use either to pick up existing rentals or create new rental agreements, are equipped with a touch screen interface for standard self-service elements, as well as a second screen allowing customers to interact directly with live customer service agents via video.

The kiosks allow the company to expand from airports and agencies to new locations, including parking lots and body shops, and are the most visible outgrowth of a technology-centric strategy the company’s leadership settled on three years ago, says Hertz CIO Joe Eckroth. But the company didn’t get those kiosks rolled out without some growing pains along the way.

Eckroth says the company’s first attempt at self-service failed in large part because Hertz tried to emulate the self-service airline model. The trouble is that airline kiosks print out boarding passes, and can then rely on three different security checkpoints before letting a passenger board an airplane. With a rental “you’re giving someone a $40,000 asset, so you need a bit more information up front,” Eckroth says. But adding those additional steps to an automated car rental service made the transaction too complex for most users, who had to “go through several screens and a lot of legalese.”

Eckroth says Hertz pulled the kiosks and went back to the drawing board. “Instead of proliferating a mediocre solution, we came up with a better way to do it,” he says.

That “better way” includes two monitors, one of which is for communicating with a service agent who can guide users through the reservations process. Eventually, once they’ve been through the process a few times, they may no longer need the help, but “with the agent assist, you always have the agent there when you need it.”

Using video, the agents can review documents like drivers licenses or passports to help expedite rentals, and have access to real-time inventory to help customers, particularly if they’ve already got a reservation but want to swap for another car. In addition to rental agreements, the kiosks dispense a radio-frequency ID card that customers use to unlock the cars, which means they can rent cars without having an agent present. The location at Los Angeles International Airport has 12 kiosks processing an average of 7 rentals per hour during peak times, Eckroth said.

That factor alone is responsible for the success of the program from Hertz’ point of view. It allows the company to serve multiple locations 24 hours per day with a minimum number of agents. It also allows the rental company to expand beyond airports and traditional agency store-fronts to innovative places like parking lots and automobile repair shops.

Eckroth says the company created the kiosks using commodity hardware combined with best-in-class software and some homegrown applications, such as the reservation systems. One of the challenges, he said, was “figuring out the right bandwidth for video without going too far – bandwidth can get very expensive with thousands of locations,” he said.

According to Eckroth, the kiosks are only part of the first phase of a technology overhaul at Hertz – other initiatives include a mobile reservations app and text alerts to Gold-level customers to let them know where their cars are located. Hertz has also outfitted employees with mobile devices allowing them to provide customer service on the lots rather than behind a counter.

Eckroth says the company vision is “to give you a wrapper of technology around your entire experience with Hertz” in large part because of CEO Mark Frissora’s “passion” for technology. But he joked that having high-level support for technology also means the CEO is a lot more involved in that aspect of the business – “it’s a two-edged sword,” Eckroth said.

Comments (1 of 1)

Mark Walker of Nu Car Rentals invented the kiosk when he was part owner and head of technology at Advantage (now owned by Hertz), so long ago the patent has expired. Very little of the what Hertz is doing is new improvements on Mr. Walker's kiosks, save some technology advances over the years, that were used by Budget Rent-A-Car for years. He was way ahead of his time! The guy is brilliant.

In this second article in a two-part series, Sonny Garg, senior vice president and chief information and innovation officer at Exelon Corp., the $27.4 billion competitive energy provider based in Chicago, describes the structure and inner workings of his emerging technologies team.